


Pull Me Up From Down Below

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Is Conflicted, Cuddles, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Spoilers for Episode 56 Of Campaign 2, Talk of An Incident Of Unconscious Self-Harm, Talk of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 23:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18303836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: They are the heroes of the Dynasty, and Caleb can't feel a thing, not until Fjord reaches out and pulls him back to himself.





	Pull Me Up From Down Below

**Author's Note:**

> Hadn't written any Caleb/Fjord in a long time and thought this should be remedied.
> 
> Yes the title comes from the Avril Lavigne song "Head Above Water." It's a good song, what can I say?

They are the heroes of the Dynasty, and instead of being lead to cells in chains or being executed where they stand, the members of the Mighty Nein are lead to chambers where they can bathe. Steam rises from the water, so it must be hot, but Caleb doesn’t feel anything. He doesn’t remember washing himself, but his hair is wet when he steps from the bath, and his skin tingles as if it has been freshly scrubbed.

They are the heroes of the Dynasty, and the robes that are laid out for them are the finest silk with all the color and shimmer of moonstone in firelight. He hears Jester laugh and watches her spin in delight, but it’s as if he’s looking at her from the end of a hallway instead of from an arm’s length away, close enough to touch. He’s reminded of a white silk shirt with too tight cuffs, and a voice telling him not to fidget. He stops himself from tugging at the sleeves of his robe, which are loose and comfortable.

They are the heroes of the Dynasty, and they are sitting at a table filled with food enough to rival the banquets Caleb had been to in his youth, back before he had been Caleb, back when he had burned brightly, before burning up and burning out. Caduceus is smiling as he helps himself to the many platters of vegetables being passed around, and talking about how he’s never seen so many varieties of potatoes. Caleb’s plate is full, and then it is empty, but he doesn’t remember eating a single bite.

They are the heroes of the Dynasty and people are asking Caleb questions that he answers without actually answering, the art of courtly conversation much trained and long unused causing an ocean of words to spill from him. The nobles around him smile and nod, impressed, as Caleb drowns in words, as he struggles not to scream. Any minute now they’ll realize he’s a fraud, and the chains will come out again. Any minute now.

They are the heroes of the Dynasty and the Empress stands at the head of the table, shining and beautiful, and she tells them that they have restored light and hope and lives upon lives to her people, and whatever they ask for she will give them, if it is in her power to give. Caleb looks at the Beacon and thinks about how he would have cracked it open like a walnut if it had meant being able to control the flow of time. He could ask for power. He could ask to be taught how to control the threads of fate as he has seen the Kryn warriors do. He could. He could.

They are the heroes of the Dynasty and when Caleb asks for Nott’s husband to be released, when the Empress nods and says it will be done, when Nott looks at him with tears and adoration in her eyes, when his friends cheer and Beau claps him on the back and calls him a big damn hero, all he sees is Trent Ikithon looming over him, telling him he’ll be the hero of the Empire one day.

*********

“Caleb? Can you tell me what time it is?”

Caleb blinks. He’s no longer in the banquet hall of the Kryn. He doesn’t know where he is, except it is quiet, and he is siting on something soft. Instead of the memory of Trent’s hard eyes he is looking into eyes that are yellow with slit pupils, but there are whites around the irises, unlike Nott’s eyes. Fjord. It’s Fjord sitting in a chair across from him, his hand on Caleb’s shoulder a comforting weight. He feels it like he’s felt nothing else since he pulled the dodecahedron out of Jester’s bag.

“It’s seven o’ clock,” Caleb hears himself saying. He may not remember how he got to this room, but whatever internal mechanism that lets him know what time it is seems to still be working.

Fjord nods. “I’ll take your word for it. Can you tell me where you are?”

Caleb looks around. He’s in a bedroom all done in silver and white, and the silver filagree on the bedposts reminds him of the architecture of the Empress’s throne room, and the dining hall. His old clothes are by the bed, his pack and his books resting there as well. “I assume we’re still in the dwelling of the Empress Leylas Kryn. I do not know if it’s a fortress or a palace, we have not seen the outside, only a handful of rooms.”

Fjord nods again. “You’re right. Now, can you tell me your name?”

Caleb gives him a look. “You know my name, Fjord. You used it yourself a minute ago.”

Fjord has the decency to look chagrined. “I know, just humor me?”

Caleb sighs. “My name is Caleb Widogast,” he says, and is surprised at how good it feels to say that, like he’s put a layer between himself and the young man named Bren who knew how to smile and speak and behave at formal functions.

“Last question, I promise. How do you feel right now?”

Caleb considers this for a long moment. There’s a strange taste in his mouth, something sharp and acidic, and he feels strangely hollow. “I feel like I might have thrown up.”

“You uhhh, yeah you kind of did. If it helps, I don’t think anyone saw you. You very politely excused yourself from the table and left the room, and when I went to see if you were all right, well, you weren’t.” Fjord goes to get up. “I should get you some water.”

Fjord goes to get up and Caleb feels his breath hitch. Fjord seems to hesitate for a second but then he only gestures towards a door Caleb hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m not going far. These rooms all have washrooms next to them.” He gives Caleb a little smile. “Pretty fancy digs. Even better than the Pillow Trove.”

Caleb can’t force himself to smile back, he feels too brittle for that, but he does manage a nod. Satisfied, Fjord disappears for a moment and comes back with a cup full of water, handing it to Caleb before sitting back down in the chair.

“Thank you,” Caleb says. The water is cold and tastes faintly of minerals, washing away the lingering taste of bile.

“You’re welcome,” Fjord says, and he sounds relieved. “Just glad to have you back with us. I knew—I mean, I thought something was wrong earlier, but we were all kinda in a state of shock, I think. Except Caduceus maybe. But the more I watched you, the longer dinner went on, the more I realized you were—“ Fjord rubbed at the back of his neck. “It was like watching a candle burn out in a dark room. How the light just gets dimmer and dimmer and the shadows get longer until the flame goes out. You were still talking and moving, but _you_ weren’t there any more.”

Caleb nods slowly. “It was like I was very far away from myself. But you brought me back. With your questions. That was… very helpful.” That is an understatement. It was like he was underwater, and Fjord pulled him back up onto the shore.

“I knew it worked for me, so I thought it would work for you,” Fjord says, and Caleb looks up from the empty cup in his hands.

“It worked for you?”

“Yeah,” Fjord says, and he averts his eyes. “Back on the ship, I kept having these dreams…”

“About Uk’otoa?” Caleb assumes, and is surprised when Fjord shakes his head.

“No. I mean, yes, I was dreaming about him, but when I woke up from those dreams I was _awake._ Terrified, sure, but awake. But these other dreams, they were different. They were uhhh…” Fjord’s shoulders hunch up close to his ears. “Dreams about Avantika.”

“You do not have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Caleb says quickly. He remembers their time as part of Avantika’s crew all too clearly, remembers how he felt every time Avantika gave Fjord a knowing look or an overly friendly touch, how his heart had been full of jealousy and possessiveness towards Fjord and anger towards the pirate woman. Fjord didn’t know how Caleb felt about him, and Caleb was going to keep it that way.

“No, I don’t mind telling you. Talking about it helps some. When I was… with her… it was like watching a play. Like I wasn’t really there. I’d feel that way for hours afterwards too. Like I was watching everything through a window. I’d try to pick things up and kept dropping them because I couldn’t really feel them.”

“I didn’t know,” Caleb says, and he hates that he didn’t know, that he was so wrapped up in himself that he didn’t notice. “I didn’t know it was… so bad for you.”

“I didn’t want you to know,” Fjord says softly. “I didn’t want anyone to know. I was trying to protect everyone, make her think I was on her side, keep her attention off of the rest of you. And it worked. I mean, right up until the end there, it worked. So it was worth it.”

Caleb wants to tell him it wasn’t worth it, not if it had hurt Fjord in this way, but he thinks that Fjord needs to believe his sacrifice wasn’t in vain, so he says nothing.

“I was actually relieved when we got found out. It meant I didn’t have to pretend anymore, I wasn’t going to have to spend another night… but then the dreams started. And the dreams were _worse._ Sometimes she’d be alive, and sometimes she’d be dead, and even after I woke up it felt like I was still asleep. I couldn’t feel anything.”

Fjord opens his right hand, the one with the line of the scar crossing it, the symbol of the blood pact they had made in Dashilla’s lair. There are other scars there too, Caleb notices, too faint to see unless someone was really looking for them, four marks in a row. “And one night Caduceus woke up and found me sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clenched so tight that my claws were digging into my palms. He says I was mumbling about how I just wanted to feel something, I just wanted to wake up. I don’t remember any of that, but Caduceus doesn’t seem like the lying type. I just remember him holding my hands and asking me questions. What my name was, where was I, things like that. It helped me feel more… present.”

Fjord looks up into Caleb’s eyes. “And then I saw you tonight, and you looked like I imagined I had looked, back then. I had to try and help.”

“I am glad you did,” Caleb says. “You didn’t have to.”

Fjord, gods bless him, looks confused. “Of course I had to. I wasn’t going to just leave you to suffer if I could stop it. I mean, I care about you Caleb. You know that, right?”

Caleb’s heart, his foolish, terrible heart, beats faster even as he feels his mouth go dry. Fjord cannot mean what Caleb thinks he means. He can’t. “Of course I do,” he says carefully. “You care for all of us.”

“I do,” Fjord says softly, and places his scarred hand over one of Caleb’s own. “But I care for you especially. You didn’t know?”

“I—“ Caleb remembers every one of Fjord’s smiles. He remembers every firm handshake, every promise that they’d make it work, every time Fjord protected him in battle, every time he had come back to consciousness to see Fjord’s face, the half-orc’s expression one of worry and relief and—

“You should not,” Caleb whispers, as much to himself as to Fjord. He should pull away from him, instead of leaning closer.

“Why? I mean, if you don’t feel the same about me, that’s fine, I understand—“

“It’s not that,” Caleb says, realizing as soon as he says it that he should have lied, should have told Fjord he meant nothing to him, but it’s too late now. “I am not a good man, Fjord.”

“You keep saying things like that,” Fjord says. “How you’re not a good person, you’re a coward, that you’re just using us. And I know we got off to a rocky start—“

Caleb remembers clutching a scroll case in one hand, Fjord’s falchion at his throat.

“But I think we’ve both become better people since then.”

Caleb wants to believe that he’s become a better person, that he’s not becoming the person Trent wanted him to be, that he hasn’t already become him. But he knows he can never be good enough, not unless he can go back and undo what he did. He shakes his head.

“Does it have something to do with your past? All that stuff you say about yourself? Because I know what it’s like to be told something so often you start to believe it.” Fjord leans forward ever so slightly, his hand tightening around Caleb’s a fraction. “Before I met you, before I met Vandren, I did some things I wasn’t exactly proud of, all because I started believing what everyone else told me I should be. But they were wrong about me, just like you’re wrong about you. You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for, Caleb Widogast.”

Caleb wants to blurt out the truth, to tell Fjord just how terrible he is, how many lives have been ended by his hands, including the lives of his parents. How he is less a man and more of a haunted house walking, full of ghosts. Instead he makes the mistake of looking up, of looking into those eyes so full of concern, the points of Fjord’s still growing tusks worrying at his upper lip. Those lips are almost close enough to kiss, and Caleb is a selfish man sometimes, no matter what anyone else says, and he is too tired to deny himself what he wants. He drifts forward, like seaweed caught in a tide, and places his lips on Fjord’s.

It’s not a kiss like the ones Caleb has read about in countless smutty books. Their noses bump together, and it takes some readjusting to not have Fjord’s tusks dig into Caleb’s lower lip. It’s clumsy and awkward and somehow it’s perfect anyway. Caleb doesn’t realize he’s crying until he pulls back and Fjord places a gentle hand on his cheek, wiping a tear away with his thumb.

“I’m not that awful of a kisser, am I?” Fjord asks, and his tone is teasing and worried all at once.

Caleb is prepared to force out a chuckle and is surprised when it comes up and out of him easily. “I am the one who should be asking that. It has been a long time, for me.” His voice is a shaking, tremulous thing.

“You’re not just… going along with this because I want it, are you?” Fjord sounds unsure and young and Caleb has to remind himself that he is not the only one who bears scars from his past.

“I want this too,” Caleb says quickly, and it is hard to say that, to admit that, even if it’s the truth. He shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t want anything that will make his life more complicated, just another knot that will have to be undone when he reweaves the tapestry of fate. He leans his forehead against Fjord’s. “Just… please be patient with me.”

“I can do that,” Fjord whispers.

The next kiss is a little more confident, a little more sure. Caleb lifts a shaking hand and rests it on the curve of Fjord’s skull, feels Fjord sigh into his open mouth as Fjord’s fingers tangle in Caleb’s hair. Caleb loses track of time, but it’s not like before. He’s not a stranger in his own body, watching himself kiss Fjord. He’s in the moment, aware of every breath, every sound, every sensation. He pulls back, panting, overwhelmed, and rests his head on Fjord’s shoulder.

“Stay?” Caleb asks softly. He doesn’t want to be alone with his own thoughts tonight, not just because he knows he’ll pick apart this one moment of undeserved peace if he is. Part of him is still convinced that any second guards will burst through the door and put them all in chains. He hadn’t expected giving up the beacon to actually _work._ “Just— just sleeping. Not—“

“I understand,” Fjord breathes into his hair. “You’re not the only one who needs to take things slow.”

Caleb winds his silver thread around the room, his head spinning with exhaustion, but he finds himself smiling when he crawls into bed, into the circle of Fjord’s arms. The lights in the room dim by themselves and Caleb closes his eyes, relaxing into the mattress and the solid warmth of Fjord’s bulk.

“We can make this work,” Fjord whispers, and the last kiss they share before sleep is even softer than the pillow under Caleb’s head.

“We can,” Caleb whispers back as he closes his eyes, and he hopes that what he’s saying isn’t a lie.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr and angel_in_ink on Twitter if y'all want to stop by and say hi!


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